The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has provided an inventory of nursing facility beds in the Commonwealth as of December 31, 2015.

The spreadsheet includes all licensed nursing beds in Virginia and all licensed hospital beds in Virginia hospital long-term care units (LTCUs) that are certified for Medicare and/or Medicaid reimbursement for skilled nursing facility (SNF) or NF services.

This inventory shows very little change from the previous inventory, which was produced in January 2014. Two years ago:

• Virginia had 291 nursing home facilities; now there are 294, a gain of 1.0%.
• Virginia had 32,668 total beds; now there are 32,590, a loss of 0.2%.
• Virginia had 29,940 Medicaid-certified beds (most also certified for Medicare); now there are 29,930, a loss of 0.03%.  Two years ago, 91.6% of all nursing home beds were certified for Medicaid; now 91.8% are certified for Medicaid.
• 4% of all beds were “non-participating”, i.e., not certified for either Medicare or Medicaid; now 2.9% are non-participating.
• Fifteen facilities (out of 291) were certified for Medicare but not for Medicaid; now seventeen facilities (out of 294) are certified for Medicare but not for Medicaid.

According to VDH, small changes in bed certification status occur frequently, but usually at the beginning of a calendar quarter.  Changes in numbers of beds are infrequent, mostly as a result of certificate of public need (COPN) actions, but bed decreases can occur at a provider’s discretion, and some bed relocations don’t require COPN approval.

VDH also supplied these notes about the inventory:

• The spreadsheet is organized by health planning region and then by planning districts within the health planning region.  At the bottom of the spreadsheet is a separate listing of (non-state) hospital LTCUs, but these are also included in the main listing of facilities by planning district.
• At the very end of the spreadsheet are listed four facilities of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.  These facilities are shown just for general information.  They are certified but not licensed by the Department of Health, and they’re not covered by the Certificate of Public Need program.  They are not included in the main listing of nursing home facilities.
• Information in the inventory is derived from data maintained by the Division of Long Term care. Nearly all of the entries in the “Change Notes” column were prepared the Division.
• VDH acknowledges that the four right-most columns of the spreadsheet may not be entirely complete and up-to-date, especially the information on assisted living facilities, but included it with the understanding that it may be helpful to some users.

VDH does not intend to update the inventory until this one becomes outdated by virtue of important errors discovered or by the aggregation of several changes in bed numbers. Please contact Sam Clement with the VDH Division of COPN at 804.367.2136 with questions or to advise him of any apparent errors you see.